


Dani

by RHGroeninga



Series: A Thousand Ways To End A Story [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: City Elf Origin, City Elves, Elven Alienages, Fairy Tales, Gen, Pre-Canon, Rags to Riches, Sweet Irony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 01:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHGroeninga/pseuds/RHGroeninga
Summary: Dani loves telling fairy tales to the children in the Alienage, of elven heroes who slew giant, terrible dragons and of chivalrous princes that would whisk a pretty beggar girl away and make her his queen.Sadly for her, there was no room for fairy tales in real life.





	Dani

_Dani_

...

Her life was no fairy tale. Far from it. Everyday before dawn she left the Alienage with a slew of other girls to the Wyvern Weavery, where they spun flax and wool and weaved everything from silky fabrics with the most intricate patterns to sturdy, durable linen for the common folk. At the end of every day, when the sun had almost sunken behind the horizon and the city was bathing in a soft golden hue, her hands were red and raw and her belly was empty, but she and Shianni each were five coppers richer than the day before and they still had plenty of time to prepare dinner from the vegetables in the garden.

Her life was no fairy tale, but the work in the weavery was safe and respectable for a young elven girl. It bet being a servant at one of the estates, where ones well-being was entirely in the hands of arrogant, whimsical and sometimes handsy noblemen and noblewomen (though some of the elves took pride in being their employer’s ‘favourite’). It certainly bet being out on the streets, with no food to eat and no roof over her head, being delivered to other people’s gold and goodwill and Ferelden’s harsh, uncompromising weather. It was why, every third day, she gave one of her hard earned coppers to Mannorin, the mason who had been condemned to life as a cripple when he fell off the new Chantry’s construction works due to early ice in Firstfall. It was as much as she could spare, and the man always had a friendly word for her.

Her life was no fairy tale, but the day she set out to get married to a man she had never met, her life started an unexpected and adventurous course and she wondered when exactly she stopped being just another knife-ear and started being the Hero of Ferelden.

So perhaps her life was a fairy tale after all. But all she had ever done was trying to be the best person she could be. In that, she supposed, she was like anyone else.


End file.
